It is time to admit that the employer-based health care system is dead — a relic of the industrial economy. America cannot compete in the new global economy when we are the only industrialized nation on earth that puts the price of healthcare on the cost of our products.

….And that’s why I chose to be here today, standing with several major corporations — some of whom I don’t always agree with, and of some of whom, frankly, I have been critical.

It is about time somebody figured out that Democrats need powerful allies to move healthcare reform forward, and it will never be the insurance biz. I have only pointed this out now in threeseparateposts. You can read those to get the gist of my point so I will just observe that it is very, very exciting to see Stern working together with Wal-Mart on this. For one, Wal-Mart is the single largest employer in America and a heavy contributor to party politics. That’s a lot of pull.

Equally interesting, Stern’s SEIU is naturally positioned to represent Wal-Mart’s 1.2 million employees in America. As most know Wal-Mart practically stands by itself in the fierceness of its union-busting policies. It has a history of forcing employees to watch misleading anti-union propaganda, firing managers who don’t stop meetings and closing entire branches when the union gains a foothold. Wal-Mart and Andy Stern come pretty close to sworn enemies. Seeing Stern and the Waltons working together on this is about the best possible illustration of my point that real progress will necessitate making some awkward friendships.

On a separate point, I’m not at all surprised to see Andy Stern out front on this. Stern recently split his SEIU from the old guard unions over a philosophical rift in which Stern’s perspective strikes me as both radical and more pragmatic. Read about it here. One line in particular stands out:

a faction in the AFL-CIO led by Andy Stern, president of the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), argues for sweeping internal reform. Peculiarly, the argument centers not on social vision, which might rouse legions beyond labor’s dwindling ranks, but on organizational scaffolding. In essence it goes like this. Unions aren’t structured to win. They are too numerous: the 58 national unions should be consolidated into about 15 mega-unions to match megacorporations.They are too general: power depends on density within industrial sectors, and with various unions (from the SEIU to the Steelworkers) competing for, say, health care workers, power is diffuse, hence squandered. They are too tied to the Democratic Party: they should court Republicans, also build progressive alliances.

I think this article shortchanges the import of Stern’s emphasis on expanding union enrollment versus the established unions’ focus on direct political influence. Real influence, his reasoning goes, comes from representing more of America. But I would say that Stern got the better of the argument about forging unexpected alliances.

Finally, I would love to see the right wing boycott Wal-Mart over this. In rural America Wal-Mart has long since quashed the competition. Where else ya gonna go?

we are the only industrialized nation on earth that puts the price of healthcare on the cost of our products.

is wrong. Healthcare is always in the price of goods, whether employer funded, tax funded or employee funded. Our problem is a system that’s laughably inefficient and discriminatory, and imposes a far greater burden on those costs than our competitors.

When CEO’s of Health Insurance companies take home over 1.7 billion dollars in compensation, its time to say, we’ve had enough of these leeches. The cost of health care was never tied to injury lawyers, its the blood suckers in the insurance industry. Hopefully these guys can do something before companies like Ford go out of business trying to fund their healthcare plans…

For one, Wal-Mart is the single largest employer in America and a heavy contributor to party politics.

Yes–and primarily (though not exclusively) a heavy contributer to Republican party politics. To the point where wingnuts often identify shopping at Wal-Mart to be a “conservative” activity (see Julia Gorin’s latest miserable failure of an attempt at comedy, for example–assuming you are able to slog through it). Which is why it’s not that hard to see this on the horizon:

Finally, I would love to see the right wing boycott Wal-Mart over this.

And yes, a right-wing boycott of Wal-Mart would be one hell of a funny spectator sport.

That said, he’s got a point. The unions need to stop engaging the Democrats as their first, last, and only open ear. But they need to get involved at the grass roots level. Get in on those Republican Primary campaigns. Start fielding fresh young faces into the party who hold the “low taxes, small government” mentality but still keep friends in the union circles. If no one likes Democrats in a given district, field a few RINOs into the mix.

Endron, Exxon, and GM knew how to get their hands in both party baskets. Unions need to brighten up and start doing the same thing.

the really funny thing is that Wal-Mart no longer has to care. It’s so large that you can’t get rid of it w/out them doing something massivly illegal and high profile at the same time.
LIke working orphans to death.
On camera.
Maybe.
Essentially they are huge, and you’ll start to see Wal-Mart’s overal politics go back to the center as long as it’s good for them.
And yha, the rural right wing Libratarian free market bedwetters trying to boycott wallmart will find out quickly why the free market died an ignoble death in 19-ought-8 or so…because it can be trivially easy to create a monopoly and monopolies are bad.
In short. Go a head and boycott, and starve…or don’t and pay for something I want for once.
Yay team.

MNPundit–I don’t know how generally you meant that–I suppose some gov’t, if run well, is a good. My point is that healthcare has to be paid for, and all the costs of maintaining a society are ultimately added to, and come out of, the costs of the goods the society produces. If you’re asking whether I think gov’t as single payer is the only or best solution to the healthcare problem–no, not necessarily, although it seems to work in some countries. I am of the belief that the current system has massive cost inefficiencies built into it (and comparing US costs to all other developed countries bears that out), primarily related to the insurance infrastructure/overhead ,and that’s what’s important to address, not necessarily the place in the system that we attach the costs. It’s hard to see tying everyone to employer provided, as not all are employed and not all employers are similarly situated; but some kind of all-individual insurance plan is completely ridiculous, so gov’t involvement at some level seems inevitable.

Isn’t it time for Darrell or scs to chime and and start shrieking “SOCIALIZED MEDICINE = SOCIALISM”!

This hysterical rant will then be followed by some comment about Hillary loving socialism and hating the free market.

Then Darrell will compare the health care on Earth to that of health care on Mars and Venus.

And, and, and, and Americans will visit the doctor every other day to rip off the system – just because they can! And you have to wait for months to get your rash looked at in Canada! And French hospitals don’t have ice! Socialism! Horrors! Consternation!

We HAD “universal health care” once: back when the costs of health care were such that most could be – and were – paid for out-of-pocket. But decades of health care cost manipulation by comprehensive health care insurance providers has caused health care costs to rise at many times the rate of inflation, and now this is no longer possible. Not to mention that billions are now siphoned off to pay for enormous broker/middlemen insurance companies which add nothing to the quality of care.

What’s worse, health care insurance is now viewed as an entitlement, not a benefit. In MA it is now a statutory entitlement, which is a very dangerous precedent.

If we weren’t trapped inside the box we keep beating on in trying to solve this problem, the answer would be obvious:

– Leverage economies of scale for catastrophic plans at the municipal level, NOT at the company level. This is big enough to have group sizes in the tens of thousands, while still small enough to have accountability in plan administration (nationally-administered or even statewide plans would not be as responsive or as accountable).

– Bring health care costs back into line with other commodites, initially through incentives, subsidies and regulation and, finally, through the same market economics that kept those costs affordable in the ’50s.

LOL. While the union and Walmart may be allies on this particular issue, Walmart is not interested, as indicated by their “fierce unionbusting”, in any way, shape, or form, in having their employees represented by any union. In case you’d like to know the general effect of the union, ask Ford and GM how that’s working out for them.

In case you didn’t notice, unions are going the way of the dodo. Just 12% of the total workforce is in a union, and it declines every single year.

In case you didn’t notice, unions are going the way of the dodo. Just 12% of the total workforce is in a union, and it declines every single year.

Tis more the pity. The unfortunate trend helped to expand corporate profits while undermining whatever leverage the American worker had left. Add to the mix states like Florida that are ‘right to work’ (i.e. businesses can do whatever the fuck they want) and it’s amazing that there are any unions left at all.

I keep reading the articles promoting the government run medical care, and I still don’t find any actual reasoning behind it. What is the actual problem you want to solve? What evidence do you have that the government will solve this problem? At what cost to society will the government solve it? Somehow, these questions are never answered. Yes, nearly 10% of Americans don’t have medical insurance. Okay – but this does not mean that the rest of the people, i.e. 90% of the Americans should be forced to switch to a government run medical system. Okay, the costs of medical care are too high. Fine – but what makes you think the government can do it more efficiently than the private sector? If it can – why can’t it do it now? Organize a government run company, make it compeletely voluntary and be funded solely by the customers. It such an enterprise were so effective – it would have been already done by now.

It such an enterprise were so effective – it would have been already done by now.

Well for one, you just described Medicaid. It works pretty well, and in fact one resonable route to universal healthcare is to gradually expand the Medicaid income gap and lower the Medicare age gap. There’s nothing wrong with the way that either program works.

As for why we don’t do exactly what you recommend, look up adverse selection. If you think paying for everybody is unfair imagine having to pay for your own insurance, plus the pool of people too expensive for any private insurer to accept. You would get socked much worse than if the cost was distributed evenly.

If you think paying for everybody is unfair imagine having to pay for your own insurance, plus the pool of people too expensive for any private insurer to accept. You would get socked much worse than if the cost was distributed evenly.

With a large enough group – say a municipality of several tens of thousands as opposed to a company with 40 or 50 – this problem is completely solved for catastrophic health care plans. But that doesn’t solve the real problem.

Everyone keeps focusing on “how can everyone afford insurance that will cover the cost of health care“. We keep talking about “covering the costs” as if there were just no limit to how high they can go, and so that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s become somehow “taboo” to think in terms of forcing health care costs themselves back in line with what people can typically afford without insurance – as we did 50 years ago. Staying trapped in this box virtually guarantees that health care costs will continue to rise at some multiple of inflation. We’ve been watching this happen for decades and any “solution” that doesn’t address this problem only leads to a worse situation down the road.

This mindset is the primary problem. We’ve become conditioned to think in terms of “affording comprehensive insurance plans” when those have been the cause of the skyrocketing costs. In many cases such plans are now seen as entitlements, which is creeping socialism by another name.

Eliminate comprehensive plans, go back to direct pay and implement catastrophic plans with large groups, as suggested above, and you solve the problem in a business-friendly way that ensures no one will go broke on health care and no one needs to go without it.